Is it just me, or are you a LOADS of tabs open kind of folk too?

OMG…the information right? I just sat down in my “scheduled” time slot (more on that later) to read, respond and clear emails. I have a lot…and I’m not even that busy and important!!

I subscribe to a lot of super uber great teachers/healers/coaches/writers blogs. Not to mention a bunch of holiday spotting sites and god, I don’t know…a LOT of other stuff that floods into my in box daily.

Added to those are all the cool emails I receive from friends about events, messages from clients, stuff from friends, stuff from awesome people involved in putting together our retreat, messages from awesome people attending our retreat, school notices x 3, youtube clips I might like, TED talks I might like…

Holy crap!

Overwhelm!

Or not????

.Last week I did a last minute Larry dash to see Dr Libby speak. I had heard Dr Libby’s name mentioned a few times over the last 6 months and when it popped up in our Soul Reader FB page that she was coming to the Gold Coast, I felt like I might need to go.

After arriving early and scoring a free ticket because I helped them set up, I settled in to hear all about “Why are we so tired”. Dr Libby is an uber smart and completely likeable kinda presenter who didn’t just say, “Drink more water, get more sleep, stop eating so much crap, and move your body” (although that was in there somewhere) she got into the good stuff.

And the good stuff for me was, Jen…YOU HAVE TOO MANY TABS OPEN and Jen…YOU GOTTA TRY SCHEDULING THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR DAYS.

One of my strengths is collecting information from a variety of places, especially related to personal growth. Which is great if you are skilled at focussing on one thing at a time and really connecting with it and THEN moving on to the next thing.

The latter skill….I would get marked as ‘still developing’ on my report card.

I’ll start researching something like healthy satay chicken recipe, then I’ll come across something about indian food being fantastic for digestion, which will remind me of how much I love Ayurvedic food and then I’ll have a look at when the next Mudita Institute retreat is on and that leads me to think about……….

I could actually be on an episode of hoarders, just with information alone I have collected.

TABS EVERYWHERE USUALLY OPEN!

So, Dr Libby delivered a sweet piece of freshly baked, ready to take home dessert.

CLOSE THE LOOPS of thought so you can CLOSE THE TABS sucking energy.

How?

Well first…breath. Deeply!

Second, notice how you approach the email situation. If you have 500 emails, do you scream and throw your hands up and then grab your hair, leap up from your chair and run around the room. To return and you still have 500 emails?

Or do you go, yep…I’ve got 500 emails and I have “schedued” an hour to bust it out. Lets do this!

Which leads me to the best little gem Dr Libby gave me:

SCHEDULE!

If it isn’t in the diary, it ain’t happening!

I don’t know about you, but I’ll often be in the middle of something and a text will come through, or a ping of some description off my phone. Most often I will check it and then carry on with what I am doing so I don’t lose TOO much connection with whatever I am doing.

I’ve begun to notice that I then reply in my head, and think, “I’ll respond to that later”. Then, when later arrives and I am doing something else, I have forgotten and surprise…I forget to respond.

So, in the middle of the night, I will wake up, with “shit, I didn’t respond to so and so”, (I don’t really have a friend called so and so) and then my mind reverts to all the other loops still left spinning on all the other tabs I have open!

Then I get stressed. Then my heart races. Then my body feels like it needs to flee. I am hit the RED ZONE of anxiety and stress. Increasing adrenalin and cortisol and leaving me existed from all the circulating hormones that haven’t been up taken into my muscles running from the predator.

The chaser is only in my mind. My mind is chasing content in a bunch of different tabs open!

Arrrrr!

SO!!!

I am trying this new gig.

Every day, I allocate an hour for emails and message replies and half an hour for phone calls.

I am not getting carried away with this new system and scheduling EVERYTHING….but, I have taken a baby step.

My phone is on silent. I have turned off alerts. I will check it three a day. I will answer my husbands calls and if the school calls…but other stuff…into the schedule.

So far, so good…

As for actually closing the tabs that I want to get back to reading when “I have time”…I’m just going to stop hoarding and declutter!!!

Lets see how it goes.

Now, to schedule some time to unsubscribe to a bunch of stuff….

Pft, the irony. I have a subscribe thingy on my page…

Big, big love

Remember you are enough….even if you are a tab open kind or a tab closed kind or a no tab kind!